New York to San Fran, or the other way around?

[BCL]

Hi, welcome fellow Pennsylvanian. I don't believe 10 ride tickets work like that. They are intended for commuters on shorter, frequent corridor rides. If you are looking to ride long distance you would need to make your itinerary and make individual reservations with your stops in mind. An option is to buy a USA Rail Pass ($500) which does allow stopovers, yet you still would need reservatons for each segment. Sorry, they don't make it easy.

It used to be a lot easier back when a multi-ride was a workaround to get on an otherwise fully booked train. And I think on some routes they allowed them to be used for multiple passengers as long as the passholder was one of them. Five passengers might go round-trip with a single 10-ride pass.

 

[joelkfla]

I think @sp001 actually meant the Rail Pass, as it allows 10 segments or "rides", but isn't familiar with the terminology.

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[Cal H]

New here also.....and also want to do this trip but we were thinking of buying the 10 ride ticket so we can get on and off where we want.
Anybody do this?

This sounds like the rail pass. If so, my wife & I used it last fall. We had a great time and it was a pretty good deal. As others have said - it is not a “hop on- hop off” like a tourist bus, but with a bit of planning you can make it operate kinda sorta like that.
Please clarify for us the ticket/pass you are referring too and I’m sure you’ll get lots of good info!

 

[BCL]

I think @sp001 actually meant the Rail Pass, as it allows 10 segments or "rides", but isn't familiar with the terminology.

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Yeah - I was a bit confused with the reference to a "10 ride". Most here would call it the USA Rail Pass or at least refer to it as "10 segments". Plus "on and off" sounded like it could be about random times. But then "doing this trip" didn't necessarily make sense in that context.

As for the pass, there are some things that might be considered, such as bus segments counting as a whole segment if one wants to maximize the use of segments. Haven't some people decided against using the rail pass to reserve a bus segment and just bought a separate ticket for the bus (with a throwaway train segment) just to preserve the rail pass segment to use on a longer train ride? I know there's a lot of talk about that for Emeryville or Oakland to San Francisco.

 

[Cal H]

As for the pass, there are some things that might be considered, such as bus segments counting as a whole segment if one wants to maximize the use of segments. Haven't some people decided against using the rail pass to reserve a bus segment and just bought a separate ticket for the bus (with a throwaway train segment) just to preserve the rail pass segment to use on a longer train ride? I know there's a lot of talk about that for Emeryville or Oakland to San Francisco.

Absolutely. If you are wanting to maximize the value of the pass you compare the cost of any short segments to the cost per segment of the pass ($50). When my wife & I traveled from LA to Merced and back (2 segments each way) - those segments were very cheap to pay with cash, saving the 4 pass segments for the longer overnight runs on the SWC, CS, CZ & CNOL.

Now, I have looked into a California pass (7 trips over 21 days I think). I just haven't put together an itinerary that works for us yet. I'm sure it exists, I just haven't found it

 

[sp001]

Ok yes I was talking about the rail pass. We would plan out the entire trip and make all the reservations ahead of time. Seems like the best way to see a lot.

 

[Cal H]

Ok yes I was talking about the rail pass. We would plan out the entire trip and make all the reservations ahead of time. Seems like the best way to see a lot.

Super! If you can make it work for you the rail pass is a great way to travel and see a lot of the country

When we started to look into Amtrak travel we watched a bunch of youtube videos. There are tons of them out there and I would encourage you to watch a bunch of them. One couple that we liked a lot was under the name of "Grounded Life Travel". This couple have a lot of videos covering nearly all aspects of the Amtrak experience - good & bad, coach & sleeper accomodations and many route specific videos.

Regarding the pass, and the first question to ask yourself is - are you ok with overnight travel in coach? Our attitude going in was we've done it in an airplane so we could overnight on a train. As a couple of seniors though, we didn't want to do 2 or 3 nights in a row in coach - so we spent one day/night aboard and then got off to spend 2-3 nights (usually) before continuing on. We made it work and it worked out very well for us. So much so that I hope we can do it again in 2025.

So, the ball is in your court. Tell us where you plan to start and end your trip and where you want to go in between and maybe what you want to see. And, when you want to do your travel.

One last thing when you start thinking about where you might go. If your plans include staying in any of the major cities - there will be "a lot" of people (not so much on this forum) that are nay sayers - don't go to Atlanta, or New Orleans, or LA, or San Francisco - they are crime ridden hell-holes of homelessness. Take what they say with a grain (or bucket) of salt. My wife & I stayed in ATL, NOL, CHI, ABQ, LA, Berkeley, Denver, DC and a few other places. We enjoyed visiting each and every one of them and plan to do them all again as we are able

 

[BCL]

Absolutely. If you are wanting to maximize the value of the pass you compare the cost of any short segments to the cost per segment of the pass ($50). When my wife & I traveled from LA to Merced and back (2 segments each way) - those segments were very cheap to pay with cash, saving the 4 pass segments for the longer overnight runs on the SWC, CS, CZ & CNOL.

Now, I have looked into a California pass (7 trips over 21 days I think). I just haven't put together an itinerary that works for us yet. I'm sure it exists, I just haven't found it

When paid with cash fares, the bus ride from Oakland or Emeryville might have been included or was perhaps something like 50 cents or a dollar.

The California Rail Pass is actually 7 days of travel over a 21 consecutive day period. So it's very possible to get a lot of rides for each day of travel. But then there's the fine print.

https://www.amtrak.com/california-rail-pass​

Details​

• The California Rail Pass is valid for travel on any 7 days during a consecutive 21-day period.
• Travel during any part of a calendar day counts as using that day.
• Travel is limited to not more than four one-way journeys on a given route segment.
• The pass is not transferable and must be used within one year of purchase.

I haven't really had that much experience with it, but I did talk to someone who worked at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara and used Amtrak to commute from her home. I think she said near Fairfield, California which is on the Capitol Corridor route. I was kind of confused because she was commuting during a weekday and there was no event, but she said they do food prep for a whole week before any event like a football game. Not sure why she asked me, but she asked about the California Rail Pass and how she might use it to save on her commute. The rules are supposed to prevent it from being used by commuters. Her problem was that they limit the number of specific route segments to four during the entire period of the pass. I think the workaround is to extend the stations so that it's not the same "route segment".

I've never had a problem using tickets that had endpoints beyond a route. My typical ride was Emeryville to Santa Clara-Great America, but the 10-ride price for Berkeley to Santa Clara was the same. I've boarded northbound on Pacific Surfliner in LA Union Station even if my ticket specified Anaheim.